15 Feb: On the Ups

Once I got going today, I was feeling much better. We dont have shower shoes yet, so that process has been difficult. They make sure that we have warm water every morning to pour over our heads, but our refusal to have bare feet in the bathing room makes things tough.

Mr. Kisava and I arranged for a student to teach a class in form IIIA biology today. This way I can observe the methods that the students are used to learning from. Brayn has been able to learn this way by observing the math teacher that is here, but since there is no biology teacher, I havent had the same opportunity. It helped a lot, and I think Im going to be a lot more confident with teaching now.

After classes ended, Brayn, Mr. Kilinga, Lagoos, and I went to the village pub. The pub was the biggest store in the village, which had an adjoining dirty room with eight plastic lawn chairs around a single table. We drank Konyagi, a corn liquor (70 proof) out of the little plastic bags in which its packaged, mixed with Coke. We all had two, but since I hadn't been eating hardly at all for the past couple days I got a little more intoxicated than I had planned. As far as I know, Brayn was the only one who was aware of this, which is probably for the best. I came to realize that we were pretty much drinking on Friday at happy hour. While we were there, people kept peeking their heads in the door to sneak a glance at the wazungus, and the kids were peering through the windows despite Lagoos constantly shooing them away. It made us feel like VIPs (were not). While we drank, conversation was terrific. Mr Kilinga and Lagoos both speak English very well, and we talked about everything from electoral and social politics to soccer and other sports. On our way out we picked up some shower shoes, which are sure to completely transcend our experience here in Africa. Also, walking around the school with a buzz was an interesting new experience. All I know is that Im feeling better, I have a buzz, and these two things coming together are doing a lot for my optimism. Today was a great day.

Insets: Us with Mr. Lagoos (hopefully Brayn will send me a better picture), The washroom, and us at the bar with a couple locals

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